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Bratwurst gets a smooth, fuel-saving ride.
By Tom Berg
It's been said that you don't want to see what goes into the making of laws, or sausage. Legislatures might make you mad, but Johnsonville, the Wisconsin-based maker of bratwurst and other goodies, is proud enough to offer tours of its plant near Sheboygan Falls. I didn't get up there to see how sausages are assembled, but I did drive a truck that hauls them to markets, maybe some near you.
This was a relatively short Milwaukee-to-St. Louis run, with Jim and Terrie Schneider and their Peterbilt 387. We rode in the Pete while about 38,000 pounds of packaged and palleted brats, kielbasa and other items rested in a 48-by-102 Great Dane reefer. They had loaded on a Saturday in mid-January, and we met the next morning at a truckstop south of Milwaukee.
The Schneiders have one of the first 387s off the line and one of the first in actual service. It's owned by LAS Trucking, which is operated by Jim's brother, Jay. He has eight rigs and most are leased on with Johnsonville Trucking, the manufacturer's private fleet.
Over breakfast, which includes sausage that may or may not be Johnsonville but tastes pretty good, the couple tell me that they are not a driving team as such because she doesn't drive. She has accompanied him on the road for three years now, taking care of paperwork and enjoying the travel. Good teamwork has also made for 27 years of marriage with two sons and five grandchildren.
Outside, the Pete is washed and shined and looks brand-new; it almost is, with less than 3,000 miles on the odometer. The Schneider brothers (no relation to the Schneider National Schneiders) bought it from Peterbilt Wisconsin in Waukesha.
"People either like it or hate it," Terrie says of the 387's styling. They like it, but what matters more is its streamlining. "We figured we had to do something about fuel," which is getting god-awful costly, says Jim. So far fuel economy has been in the high 6s and low 7s on the MPG scale, but the engine is not yet broken in.
Terrie has stowed my luggage in the sleeper, Jim has cranked up the Cat C-12, and we pull out onto nearby Interstate 94. They say they were in a Freightliner FLD120 with the big "condo" sleeper and liked it, but it was getting old. Jay and Jim considered a number of makes and models before settling on this. "He's a Peterbilt man," Jim says of Jay, who runs mostly 379s, "so I figured, why not?"
One reason why not is that it left the factory with a few options, several unlabeled switches on the dash and none of the usual documentation, like a driver's manual. More serious is limited storage space. They were spoiled in the FLD, which had years of refinement and rows of cabinets, shelves and cubbyholes.
"The Freightliner had a lot of places to put things," says Terrie, who's riding on the bunk so I can sit in the passenger seat. "This isn't that way, so we've got to store things where we can." She gestured toward the plastic crates, holding paperwork files, stacked in an orderly manner on the floor in the sleeper and cab.
"It doesn't have a built-in refrigerator, so we have to use the cooler," Jim says, and that takes up more floor space. "There's a lot of wasted space back there, all that wall space where they could put cabinets. Because this was one of the first ones built, I guess they didn't have that stuff ready yet. But they're working on it.
"We've talked to Peterbilt Wisconsin and they say the factory knows about it. We're talking to them about upgrading this. If they don't, we might take it down to Indiana Custom Truck and have them work on it."
We leave metro Milwaukee on I-43, heading southwest through a gently rolling landscape. The huge windows give a good view of early winter in the upper Midwest. There's a little snow on the brown ground and temps are in the high 20s. Jim has been adjusting the rotary-dial heater controls, and cab heat is more than enough.
"He likes it hot and I like it cooler," Terrie smiles. "It's that way when we're home, too." That's in West Bend, Wis., where one of their two sons lives with his family. They're not home much because Johnsonville's products are popular and that keeps the Schneiders on the road.
The ride is good, I note, and it's pretty quiet. "There is some wind noise over here," Jim says, running his hand over the top-front corner of the door on his side. The door is vibrating slightly, which must be the problem.
Portions of the door are painted in the exterior color, a bright teal, which is a cheery accent to all the gray plastic interior. Much of the padded dash has a pebbled texture, which does not grab stick-on notes or adhesive-backed miniature calendars. "You can't stick anything up there," Terrie says, "and a lot of times you want to."
The 387's cab is a couple of feet wider than on Peterbilt's other models — a definite plus in a live-in truck. Although it uses the same windshield as the T2000 from corporate sister Kenworth, the cab's sides taper out and the integrated sleeper area is said to be 6 inches wider than the T2's.
The day gets brighter as we turn south on I-90 at Janesville and roll into Illinois, then jog over to I-39 at Rockford. A bit farther south we pause at a fueling stop, and I shoot some pics. Then it's my turn to drive.
I immediately feel right at home as I climb behind the wheel. The 387's driver's area resembles those of other modern aero tractors, and things seem well set up. Aside from my usual study of seat controls to see which of the switches and levers do what, I'm able to drive it away almost like I had driven it all day.
But I find the shifter a little vague and rubbery. That doesn't matter during top-gear cruising on the interstate, but on surface streets I grapple with the shifter and sometimes am not sure which gear I'm in. Jim says he finds it tricky, too. We chalk it up to early productionitis, and figure it could be improved with some adjustment.
The high clouds are thinning and we're facing a stronger sun. A big windshield means good vision but a lot of glare, so we pull down our visors, including a small one in the center. These help. Along with sunlight comes heat, even in winter.
"It warms up real fast in here when it's sunny, I can tell you that," he says. "All this glass really lets the sunshine in. If you park it for lunch and come back out an hour later, it's really warmed up." But the air conditioning quickly cools the cab, he adds.
As we drone down the flat interstate, Jim and Terrie tell me stories illustrating what they do and don't like about trucking. Of course, they like traveling and meeting people. But like others who haul foodstuffs, they've had bad hassles at grocery warehouses.
"I don't mind fingerprinting loads and restaging loads for them," he says. "It's good exercise. But when they tell me I have to use their lumpers, that's when I come unglued." Terrie says he "lost it" over ill treatment by a callous warehouse employee in the Carolinas, and won't go there again.
By now, it's late afternoon and we are approaching East St. Louis on I-55. Jim directs me to take I-270 west to avoid the Collinsville scale and its particularly picky officers. We and the rig are legal, but why tempt more hassles?
Jim has me exit the beltline and proceed down Illinois 203, a wide, freeway-like boulevard into Granite City. There's a truckstop, and I pull in, remembering the trailer's wide-spread tandem and avoiding sharp turns which will scuff its tires. It takes me a couple of tries at backing into a parking slot (I'm out of practice), then I shut off the engine.
Jim and Terrie hold hands as they walk across the lot toward the restaurant. A few minutes later, after ordering supper, they kiss "goodbye" as he and I go off to the buffet. "You're a cute couple," I tell them when we're seated again. "After what? — 27 years of marriage and three years together now on the road — and you still like each other." They giggle.
Dinner done, we return to the truck. It's getting dark fast as Jim drives us up Illinois 3, the Old Alton Road, which returns us to I-270. This takes us across the Mississippi River and into St. Louis. The beltline carries a lot of traffic for a Sunday night, but we drum along at 50 to 65 mph into Hazelwood, an industrial suburb northwest of the city.
"I've never been to this place," Jim says of the Schnucks grocery warehouse we're looking for, "but one of the other drivers has, and he gave me some directions." They prove inadequate and we are soon lost. With his cell phone Jim calls the warehouse's office number and not surprisingly for the day and time, no one answers.
So he grabs the CB mike and calls for directions. Soon a friendly voice from a nearby trucking company's terminal guides us right to the warehouse. Thanks, buddy!
Security people at the gatehouse politely direct Jim to a close-by door. He pulls into the lot, does a U-turn, then backs right in. It is now past 8 p.m. and I have an early plane to catch, so I bid them goodbye and fetch a taxi to a nearby motel.
P.S.: Two months later, Jim and Terrie tell me by phone that the unloading went fine, they made two more drops elsewhere the following day, then got a backhaul and returned home. They haven't yet gotten the interior upgraded. The truck runs about 10,000 miles a month and the Cat is now broken in, so fuel economy has improved, now ranging from the high 6s to mid 7s. He clocked 8 mpg on one run "with the wind at our backs."
Keeping the wind behind you is also good advice when you grill bratwurst. If you do, think of the Schneiders, who may have brought those sausages into your town.
A Good Team
Jim and Terrie Schneider, a youthful 50 and 47 respectively, still hold hands after 27 years of marriage and two now-grown boys. They met in southern California, where she's from and he was stationed in the Navy. Wisconsin is home now. They've been on the road together for three years; he drives and she does paperwork. They enjoy each other's company, but when "space" is required, "I close the sleeper curtain," Terrie says.
Jim first drove his father's semi at age 16 and has been trucking ever since. He's got miles of stories about his days as a Teamster and a non-union driver. Now he drives for a small fleet run by a younger brother, Jay.
Practical Pete
The 387 is Peterbilt's latest aero conventional, and will soon replace the aging 377. Though long-nose models with big-block power are likely to be more popular, the Schneiders snatched this one, with its medium-length hood housing a medium-block Caterpillar C-12, because they need to save money on fuel.
Its aero styling is far more radical than the 377's and altogether different from the model 379, America's archetypal "large car." The 387 is different enough from almost anything else out there that Jim says he gets some ribbing over the CB. People either like it or hate it, he and Terrie say.
However, it looks so much like Kenworth's T2000 that wags have dubbed the 387 the "T2, Me Too." Indeed, the two Paccar tractors share some very visible parts: the big windshield and doors, and those wavy side panels on the sleeper.
But those pieces and a few others add up to only 8% of parts shared between the two, Peterbilt claims. There are profound structural and electrical differences in the chassis and cab-sleeper, and equipment inside is different.
The Schneiders' 387 rides smoothly and comfortably, and is getting decent fuel economy, with a recent high (with tailwind) of 8 mpg.
SPECIFICATIONS
Tractor
2000 Peterbilt 387,
aero conventional-cab,
112-in. BBC, w/ 70-in.
High-Roof sleeper
Engine
Caterpillar C-12,
430 hp @ 1,800 rpm,
1.550 lbs-ft. @ 1,200 rpm
Clutch
Fuller 15.5-in. HD Solo
self-adjusting
Transmission
Eaton Fuller
FRO-16210C 10-speed
Front Axle
Spicer 12,000-lb. 1200I
on taperleafs
Rear Axles
Spicer 40,000-lb. DS404,
3.70 ratio, on Peterbilt
Low Air Leaf
Wheelbase
228 inches
Tires & Wheels
295/75R22.5
on aluminum discs
Weight
18,500 lbs., with 270 gallons of fuel and personal effects
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